Bomb attacks kill, injure dozens in southeastern Turkey

Three separate bomb attacks have ripped through Turkey’s troubled southeastern region, leaving a total of 44 soldiers, police officers and civilians dead and wounded.

The first bombing hit a police vehicle near a hospital in the district of Kiziltepe in Mardin province on Wednesday.

According to an unnamed Turkish official, at least 25 police officers and civilians sustained injuries in the assault, which caused considerable damage to nearby buildings and vehicles. Three civilians also died in the bombing.

Turkish sources blamed the incident on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey since 1984.

In a near simultaneous blast, which was also blamed on the PKK, a car bomb exploded in Diyarbakir, the capital of the province with the same name, killing at least four civilians, the Dogan news agency reported.

In the third similar incident earlier on Wednesday, five Turkish soldiers were killed and eight others injured after a homemade bomb exploded while a military convoy was passing in Sirnak province’s Uludere district, situated close to the Iraqi border.